Rights of nature are gaining global traction and are increasingly being enacted through constitutional reforms, legislative actions, and groundbreaking judicial decisions. Ecuador led the way in 2008, becoming the first country to recognize the legal rights of ecosystems in its constitution. Since then, the movement has spread across continents, from New Zealand’s Whanganui River to Colombia’s Atrato River; now, with the landmark case of Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon, it has reached Europe. Beyond its legal impact, the rights of nature discourse has become a rallying point for activist networks and Green political parties worldwide. However, as this legal and philosophical framework expands, it becomes increasingly important to interrogate the assumptions that underpin it.
Shedding the anthropocentric–ecocentric binary
I often encounter a narrative advanced by rights of nature advocates that I believe should be examined more critically. The reasoning follows three steps. First, some advocates identify anthropocentrism as the cause of the ecological crisis and often use terms such as “human chauvinism,” “human exceptionalism,” or “human supremacism.” All of these point to a flawed moral attitude that recognizes no intrinsic value in nature. The second step proposes a remedy: humanity must undergo a profound reconfiguration of its relationship with nature and embrace ecocentrism, recognizing the intrinsic value of all living organisms and the ecosystems in which they exist. As stated by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, one of the movement’s most influential networks, “humans must reorient themselves from an exploitative and ultimately self-destructive relationship with nature, to one that honours the deep interrelation of all life and contributes to the health and integrity of the natural environment.”
The final piece of the puzzle is legal: the conventional rights of nature narrative calls for an “ecocentric law,” where nature is a legal person with its own set of rights. Mainstream environmental law is deeply embedded in the anthropocentric worldview and, as such, cannot offer remedies. Only the “revolution” represented by the rights of nature can effectively counter the destructive patterns of human societies. This, it is hoped, would help redefine “human–nature” relations.
My main concern with this narrative is its tendency to frame ecological destruction as the result of an ethical framework that privileges “human interests” over nature, when in fact ecological harm is rooted in unequal political and economic structures that enable some humans to dominate, while leaving others—and their environments—vulnerable. As Murray Bookchin and Ramachandra Guha have long argued, the dichotomy between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism fails to account for the social, political, and economic inequalities within human societies that are at the root of the ecological crisis. Behind every instance of environmental devastation lies a familiar pattern: some actors consolidate power, capture economic benefits, and offload the social and ecological costs onto marginalized communities. Extractivism, in this light, is less a reflection of anthropocentrism than a manifestation of unequal power dynamics.
The critique of anthropocentrism often rests on the artificial notion of a monolithic and undifferentiated humankind, whose primacy is blamed for driving the planet to the brink of ecological collapse. This perspective tends to depoliticize the ecological crisis, glossing over the deep fractures across lines of class, race, and geography that shape both environmental harm and vulnerability. Humanity is not a unified political agent that can be held responsible for ongoing disruptions. In a world of stark economic and political inequalities, one question emerges as central: Who is the “anthropos” condemned by critiques of anthropocentrism? If advocates for the rights of nature are to meaningfully address ecological collapse, they must identify the social groups whose interests shape the economic dynamics of “fossil capitalism”—those who wield the power to drive or hinder the ecological transition, and the institutions and legal frameworks through which they operate.
Redistributing power in contested spaces
This shift of perspective would fundamentally alter how environmental activists approach and conceptualize the rights of nature. It is no longer simply about shielding nature from human appetites, but about intervening in the unequal power relations that determine who gets to define what counts as “nature,” how it may be used, who holds the authority to decide what happens to a given territory and its resources, and whose voices are heard or silenced in that process. As Mihnea Tănăsescu argues, the rights of nature do more than redefine humanity’s relationship with the natural world—they fundamentally reshape power dynamics within human communities.
In New Zealand, the recognition of rights of nature is less about protecting “nature” in the abstract than about renegotiating ultimate authority over specific territories between the government and Māori tribes. Similarly, judicial decisions in Colombia granting rights to certain ecosystems primarily respond to the severe environmental degradation caused by extractivist models of development that are often intertwined with armed conflicts, affecting local communities. In other contexts, however, the rights of nature may be mobilized to reinforce the power of dominant groups—for instance, enabling the Hindu majority of India to assert control over contested territories by invoking sacred ties to the land, often at the expense of minority communities.
Rights of nature initiatives must make explicit the institutional design through which nature is to “speak” in judicial and political decision-making. Far from a universal “one-size-fits-all” framework, rights of nature offer a mosaic of interpretations and applications, each yielding distinct outcomes. Abstract discussions about the merits or limitations of the rights of nature are ultimately futile, since their real-world impact hinges on the institutional choices that shape their implementation. In some cases, granting rights to nature may empower an Indigenous community to resist private or state-led developmentalist projects; in others, it may instead reinforce state power over Indigenous lands, making the state the ultimate authority in enforcing nature’s rights even at the expense of Indigenous self-determination.
A political approach to rights of nature
Determining which social groups are legitimately entitled to act on behalf of nature or to defend its rights carries profound political and distributive implications for those who hold conflicting claims over a given territory and its natural resources. Therefore, redistributing power over contested territories will inevitably spark tensions, as it challenges entrenched hierarchies and puts pressure on competing interests.
Nature is a “political battlefield,” a contested space where divergent worldviews and conflicting interests collide. Granting rights to nature will not serve as a magic wand capable of instantly restoring symbiotic relations between human societies and the natural world, or among humans themselves. Rather, the true power of the rights of nature lies in their capacity to expose contested interests and sharpen political questions: Who should have a voice in governing territories and their resources? How should existing power asymmetries be addressed? By revealing these tensions, rights of nature initiatives can open space for urgently needed debates about justice, representation, and authority in environmental governance.
Condemning anthropocentrism offers no clear political compass for an ecological movement. What is needed instead is a critical focus on the unequal power relations within human societies that shape environmental outcomes. For rights of nature advocates, this means moving beyond abstract ethical commitments and toward a political approach—one that centers questions of institutional design, representation, and authority in contested territories.